Comment While returning home from a family vacation during a storm near St. Petersburg, Florida on Friday, Michaelle May Whalen decided to give a captive lightning shot. After several unsuccessful attempts to take photos, he switched to video and lightning struck. A truck in front of her – driven by her husband, with her children – was struck hard by a cloud-to-ground bolt of lightning. He and the kids were fine, although the truck was reported to be “completely fried.” Meteorologists called the video capture the “craziest” and “most incredible” close-up video of lightning ever. The lightning bolt may have consisted of a series of four movements or rapid electrical discharges from the cloud and ground, lightning scientist Chris Vagaski tweeted. The first sign of its appearance was a blinding light that caused the camera to overexpose the scene. The barrage hit the right rear of her husband’s pickup first, about several car lengths in front of the camera. Texas Tornado Touches Teen’s Truck. Chevrolet is giving it a new one A heartbeat later, Whalen can be heard reacting with a scream, followed by an important question: “Is he okay?” Her husband and children were unharmed, as the steel-clad vehicle acted as a “Faraday cage,” in which the lightning current passes around the metal body and usually exits to the ground through the tires. The strike will avoid the crowd as long as everyone is inside the vehicle and not touching the outside metal. This is also one reason why aircraft are often struck by lightning without much damage. At the same time as the first flash, a bright orange casing surrounds where it connects to the truck as sparks explode in all directions. In less than a blink of an eye, two more flashes of rapid fire are seen, as is smoke billowing from the impact site. Vagasky believes the smoke was caused by the first stroke. Lightning in Florida explodes a piece of road on a vehicle “When lightning strikes it sends thousands of amperes of current and extreme heat into an object in just microseconds, causing explosive expansion,” Vagasky said in a message. The final flash—announced by an explosion ripping through the air—occurs as the viewer’s vehicle moves forward in the lightning’s path. Another burst of sparks is seen, along with additional orange flame. While the lightning appears relatively straight even from a short distance, the video shows a stroke with many small zigzags and loops – a plasma channel. Eventually, the channel breaks into pieces. Plasma is the result of lightning, formed when air molecules split into their atoms. At that time, the plasma can be as hot as 50,000 degrees, or about five times hotter than the sun. “The lightning channel is more of a creature, and that’s what we see right in front of the camera at the end of the video,” Vagasky said.
